Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew "from the outset" the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi was a terrorist strike — but focused more on assuaging Libyan "sensitivities" and political consequences than saving lives, retired Army Col. Patrick Murray charges.

"They're worried not about the Americans" in "a firefight in Benghazi with Islamic extremists – they're worried about sensitivities of the Libyan government," Murray tells Newsmax.

"They're worried about not how to move the Earth to get combat assets in to save our guys, they're worried about how can we spin this so it doesn't look bad because our boss [President] Barack Obama is 56 days from a reelection campaign," he adds.

"And we're telling everybody, 'OK, we got the terrorists on the run, Libya is our crown jewel of our foreign policy endeavors and everything is great.' That's what infuriates me with this report being released today."

Murray asserts "we had real-time signals… from Ansar al-Sharia, the guys that were conducting the attack."

"We were listening to their radio transmissions, we knew it was a terrorist attack from the outset," he said.

"We had real time intelligence to that fact and yet they told the American public in the lead up to the election, 'no, no, it was some crazy guy on the internet, it was just a protester response that got violent to some horrible film.'"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew from the outset the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi was a terrorist strike - but focused more on assuaging Libyan sensitivities and political consequences than saving lives, retired Army Col. Patrick Murray charges.